Boxoffice Pro - Winter 2020

you would have said Miami; Chicago;
Texas, in particular Houston, parts of
Dallas and San Antonio; and obviously
California. Maybe some of Colorado and
Arizona. That was the case 20 years ago.
Now you talk about Hispanic populations
in Kansas City, St. Louis, and Minnesota.
There is more representation in Colorado
and Nebraska.
In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, when I first
joined the company over seven years
ago, it was a movement that was starting
to happen. I’m also the chairman of the
Hispanic Collaborative in Milwaukee, and
we do a lot of research on this. Over the
past decade. the reason the entire state of
Wisconsin has shown a population growth
is thanks to Hispanics. If not for Hispanics,
there would have been a declining
population in the entire state. It is the most
rapidly growing population base in the
state of Wisconsin, in Milwaukee, and in
the southern portions of Wisconsin.
The importance of that, from a business
perspective, is about consumerism and
the workforce. It’s also represented in
the age group—Hispanics and Latinos
happen to represent the youngest average
age in America. We happen to represent
the highest percentage of millennials, the
highest percentage of Gen Zers.
This is not to discount all the other
diverse populations, by any means. Asian
communities are growing, so are African
Americans and Black communities.
Hispanics just happen to be growing at
the fastest rate and are the largest ethnic
minority in the entire United States.
Minorities and underrepresented
groups in the United States aren’t
monolithic audience blocks that only
go to movies that represent them.
Hispanic audiences buying one in
every four tickets sold at U.S. cinemas
last year confirms that. When we start
talking about bringing audiences
back to the cinema during this very
difficult recovery effort, how should
we approach our outreach to Hispanic
audiences?
When you think about marketing to
Hispanics, the fact that we ended Hispanic
Heritage Month—and I know that there
are a lot of other topics currently going on
in the world—but how much discussion
did you see, on any level in the media,
of Hispanic Heritage Month? Very
little to none. We missed a tremendous
opportunity, at a time when we’re talking
a lot about diversity and inclusion; we still
managed to miss this particular gap.
I’m Cuban American, born in Cuba,
and grew up watching movies from across
the world. The movies I couldn’t watch
were actually from the United States—
they were blacked out. I grew up watching
Chinese, Japanese, Canadian, German,
Spanish films, films from Mexico, from
South America. For me, the beauty of our
industry and what we represent is that we
provide an education and other views of
cultures that you wouldn’t otherwise get
without traveling.
We have an incredible richness as
an industry. How do we relate that to a
consumer base that appreciates it? When I
think about my own background, growing
up in Cuba, I love the movies because my
parents and I went every Sunday. Every
Sunday, that was our outing. No matter
what, we went to the movies as a family
on Sundays.
We have an incredible audience base
that is very loyal to our product. It’s an
audience base that really relates to brand
loyalty and brands that actually represent
them well and recognize them. When you
recognize Hispanics within your product,
it helps make sure that they stay loyal to
you and keep coming back.
Part of that is reinforcing moviegoing
habits that already exist. In Latin
America, it’s customary to have a
discount day in the middle of the week.
When you came back to exhibition
with Marcus Theatres in 2013, just as
the country was recovering from a
recession, the circuit introduced a
discount day, $5 Tuesdays. Did you
see a different sort of engagement
after putting practices in place that
Hispanic audiences might have
already been familiar with?
We introduced that concept just slightly
over seven years ago as a $5 Tuesday,
with free popcorn. We wanted our studio
partners to recognize that we were putting
skin in the game as well. Seven years
ago, there were still economic challenges
… it was very well accepted, almost
immediately.
The thing that most impacted me, both
personally and professionally, was figuring
out very quickly that we found an audience
we had lost. Many of those audiences are
diverse, from underserved communities
with limited income to take their families
out for any form of entertainment. All of a
sudden, I’m getting letters and calls from
moms saying, “Thank you, I’m now able to
take my family to the movies, and thank
you for the popcorn.” It felt like the right
thing to do: reintroducing ourselves to
communities that were now able to take
their families out for a fun evening, while
at the same time creating a very exciting
day that does a lot of business.
Especially right now, as we’re facing
a very difficult part of the reopening
phase, an initial reopening cycle with a
lot of changes, a lot of things outside our
control. At the heart of this challenge is
reconnecting with a lost audience. Once
you engage with these conversations
around diversity, around inclusivity, you
can apply the lessons in a number of
different scenarios, including the current
Covid recovery.
As we talk about diversity and inclusion,
about Hispanic Heritage Month, and the
importance of diverse audiences, we need
to remember we also provide an escape
for people. What NATO has done through
CinemaSafe, what every one of our theater
chains has done, we’ve all spent a great
deal of time in our planning, upgrading
our systems and processes to make
sure that people understand the safety
procedures. Keeping in mind the health
and safety of not only our customers but
our associates. There isn’t a case that can
be traced to any theater at this point in
time. It’s important for us to get things
started again.
And there’s a bigger picture here:
There’s an underserved community out
there that is struggling economically
without an outlet for out-of-home
entertainment. Our communities, all of
our consumers out there, are looking for
a place to smile, have a healthy laugh, or
a healthy cry. We provide that. I think it’s
incumbent on government officials, on
our film and distribution partners, and
it’s incumbent on us in exhibition, to
ensure that we work together. We need
to make sure that this incredible art
form continues to serve all communities,
including diverse ones, so we can stay in
business and continue to cater to them.
We have a lot of work to do, and hopefully
we can get started tackling it in a short
period of time.
Winter 2020
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